


Warm

by Bitterblue



Series: Awakenings [2]
Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix, Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to Cold River, because lickathicket on tumblr asked. "You should stop this. It's getting silly. Maybe there just...isn't an Abhorsen this time. Maybe the line is dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Ask me about my absurd crossover headcanons on tumblr, get fic written for you.

She is very, very tired of Death.

Shuddering herself back into skin and bone, the first thing Cosima sees is her sister, standing with hands twisted together, half turned away and lost in thought. She makes a noise, mouth unwilling to quite bend as she'd like it, and Alison turns to smile. It doesn't reach her eyes. Mouth soft, she carefully dismantles the ward she created and steps close to her, brushes frost from eyebrows and cheeks.

"You should stop this. It's getting silly. Maybe there just...isn't an Abhorsen this time. Maybe the line is dead." Cosima manages a snort. The Queen, all frail regality and tight muscles, rolls her eyes. "Well it's not like  _you're_  the Abhorsen. You're terrible at it."

"Maybe I just need practice." Her voice sounds cracked, still too-cold to her own ears.

"Maybe it's a distant cousin or something. After Rachel…" she sighs, and shrugs. "We'll survive a little while without. It's quiet." She touches Cosima's cheek again, fingers finally starting to leave patches of warmth. "I'm not losing you, too."

Cosima stretches, trying to remind muscle and bone and nerve how it feels to not be frozen, and takes a few trembling steps before pulling the bandolier off with still-numb fingers. She sets it carefully over the back of a chair, and then collapses in another. "I'm not getting lost, Ali," she promises. They don't look at each other, the lie hanging in the chill of the air.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Both women turn to look at the doorway and the small, white cat now busy washing his paw in what is the least nonchalant way Cosima can imagine. She waves her hand in irritation. "What?"

"Well, if you're going to be like that, I guess it doesn't matter to you that the Abhorsen is in Death for the first time, no weapons, nothing. I guess I'll just...go." Cosima glances at Alison, watching the same series of disbelief and mistrust flicker across her face that she is sure paint her own, and groans internally.

"What do you  _mean_ , the Abhorsen?"

"Walks Death, keeps dead things dead, bells, usually very annoying and self-important? I know it's been a few months since Rachel died, but I'm fairly certain you do recall." He smiles a lazy cat sort of grin. "If you'll just...uncollar me? I could go fetch her."

Cosima is already on her feet again, picking up the bells. She'd only just gotten the feeling back in her toes.

"Cosima, no. No." Alison's voice is less firm than they'd both like. Cosima slips the bandolier in place, buckling it tight.

"Have to. Sorry. Ward me?"

The chill of the river is quick to remember the taste of her flesh, or maybe it's that her bones never forgot the bite of this cold. Either way, Cosima is shivering, shuddering, trying to stay silent and warm at the same time, sure she is failing miserably at both.  _What am I doing? I don't even know where_ \--

There. Somewhere that way, something is brighter, faintly so in the gloom. Cosima shifts toward it. She would shout, if she thought it was safe to do so, but she cannot tell how far away the light is or what may lie between her and it. She fingers the hilt of her sword and the handle of her favourite bell.

It had always been the three of them. Rachel had clearly been meant, by whatever fate decided these things, to be the Abhorsen. Alison could be no one but the Queen. And that had left Cosima, unsure of herself and her place, heir to both and neither simultaneously. When Rachel disappeared, presumed dead, Cosima had shrugged herself into the overcoat and detested those keys and everything they meant. But she had done it. If not her, then who?

If she is not the Abhorsen, who is she?

She cannot tell how long she has been wading in the murk, but it feels like nothing before she is near enough the glow to tell it is a person, charter mark blazing in her forehead enough to light the water around her. She is tall, golden haired, and very still, facing away from Cosima. Cosima shuffles a little, kicking up a tiny splash, and the woman turns, sword levelled at Cosima's head.

"I'm not here to hurt you," she promises, and the woman frowns further.

"Where am I?" Her accent is foreign, strangely lilted. She is not from the Old Kingdom.

"You're in Death, but you need to go home." Even as they stand here talking, she can watch the light dim in nearly imperceptible increments. She is sure it was brighter just a moment before.

"I don't know how." She sounds scared, so desperately scared, Cosima cannot help but reach for her hand.

"Just find the thread of yourself and pull. Where are you, in Life? I'll come find you. Who are you? No, no, I have too many questions, nevermind. I'll ask when we're not here." She watches as the woman casts about for the connection to her body, and smiles when it is clear she finds it. "I'm Cosima. I'll find you."

"Delphine. In Ancelstierre." The woman pulls her hand away, and then she is gone. Cosima sighs, then stops herself. The quiet is listening, now. She needs to be home.

There is no resistance, nothing waiting to catch her unaware as she slips through the river as silently as she can and back into her body. Alison is waiting again, her mouth and forehead both tense, arms crossed over her body. She says nothing as Cosima remembers herself, mouth and jaw working until she is sure she can speak.

"I guess I'm not the Abhorsen after all. Could you get me a paperwing? I need to go to Ancelstierre." A dozen questions flicker across Alison's face, but she simply breathes and resets the line of her shoulders.

"You're a terrible flyer."

Cosima laughs, and wonders as the giddiness sweeps through her when the last time she laughed had been. She can't remember. She is not the Abhorsen. But at least she knows who is. And that means, perhaps, Cosima can be something altogether her own. Not an heir, not a spare. Herself. And she is warm.


End file.
